Ignorance Is A CHOICE

As someone who is a Muslim Pakistani-American, you know what I’m really tired of? I am exhausted of how Muslims and brown people in general, get grilled on a daily basis. There are SO many misconceptions of Islam and brown people. For as long as I can remember my Sikh brothers have been attacked for wearing their turbans because racist white people are so ignorant that they cannot tell us apart. Women with head covering = Muslim; therefore, men with head covering = Muslim. They don’t bother to do their research but just discriminate against all brown people like barbarians. Brown people are so diverse, but they have been putting us in the same boxes for years. But we come from so many different places and we have so many cultures just in the region of South Asia.

Racists will come at us for anything. They call us dirty as if one of the first civilizations in ancient history that had indoor plumbing wasn’t on the Indus river (modern day Pakistan). That’s right, we had indoor plumbing before your ancestors even knew what showering was. Your ancestors in Europe would shower two times a year before Muslims taught them how to properly clean themselves. To this day, you don’t know how to clean your ass and you have the audacity to call us “dirty?”

You call us ugly yet you spend money to make your skin tone like me, you buy dip brow so your eyebrows can be full like the women in my family. You wear bindis and call it a fashion statement but my bindi offends you. You want to wear our traditional clothes but when I do it, you ask if I’m not allowed to wear “American” clothes. You wear henna all over your body but my henna means that I’m backwards and they ask me if I just got married and if it was arranged to a stranger I hadn’t met before.

They call us backwards when Islam was the first feminist movement. Islam gave women rights at a time when baby girls were buried for being born. Islam gave women rights to choose their spouse, the right to own property, our prophet Mohammad (PBUH) told Muslim men that they need to stand up for women and treat their wife with kindness and love. You take parts of Islam and mold them to fit your racist and islamophobic rhetoric. You spread hate about a religion of love and a group of peaceful people.

You call us all terrorists and attack us in person. Is that really the best thing to do? If you genuinely thought that we were all terrorists you wouldn’t harass us, you would be terrified. Deep down you know that we are peaceful, that’s the only reason you’re still alive. If all 1.7+ billion of us were terrorists then no one would survive. Here’s what you’re really mad about; we have the lowest crime rate, highest entrepreneurship, and the highest educational attainment for women, while your white kids are busy shooting up schools. You’re mad that we’re successful despite your attempts to keep us at the bottom.

You’ve internalized hate and intolerance towards a group of people strictly because that’s what a biased media told you. I’ll admit some of you don’t personally know Muslims because you live in a bubble and spend all your time in your ignorance even though you literally have the world at your fingertips. But what about those who do know Muslims, have taught Muslims, have worked with Muslims, or have attended schools with Muslims? How can you continue to support someone who advocates so much hate towards not just Muslims but ALLminorities? Maybe you’re so comfortable in your bubble of white privilege you can’t seem to care.

Love this. So so so true. As a fellow paki-american girl, i can relate to this so well. Beautiful blog btw, just gave u a follow! Would love if you’d check mine out as well! 🙂http://www.sprinkleofsurprise.wordpress.com
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